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Time-lapse movie of Halemaumau overlook vent

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Time-lapse thermal image movie of Halemaumau overlook vent

Eruptive activity in PuÊ»u ʻŌʻō has picked up over the past week. Lava flows erupting sporadically from several places continue to fill the crater and occasionally spill out onto the east flank of PuÊ»u ʻŌʻō. This view, looking southwest, shows new lava from active and recent flows on PuÊ»u ʻŌʻō’s eastern flank. Many of the flows come directly from the small perched lava lake on the northeast side of the crater floor, visible at the center of the photo. Photo courtesy of USGS/HVO

(Activity updates are written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.)

This photo, looking south, shows lava spilling from the small, perched lava lake on the northeast side of PuÊ»u ʻŌʻō’s crater floor. The rim on the east side of the crater, in the background, has been nearly completely buried and is no longer discernable. Photo courtesy of USGS/HVO

A lava lake within the Halema`uma`u Overlook vent produced nighttime glow that was visible from the Jaggar Museum overlook and via HVO’s Webcam during the past week. The lake reached to within 26 m (85 ft) of the floor of Halema`uma`u before dropping slightly back down. This is not as high as the level reached during October 2012, but it is very close. There were several collapses from the rim and walls of the Overlook crater with the high levels. The Overlook crater is now 160 m (525 ft) wide from the viewpoint of the Jaggar overlook, and is about 200 m (656 ft) long.

On Kilauea’s east rift zone, surface lava flows remain active near the coast and are feeding weak ocean entries scattered along the sea cliff on both sides of the Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park boundary. Within Pu`u `O`o, the lava level has reached to a high level and flows have been spilling from the crater onto the northeastern flank of the Pu`u `O`o cone. This is the highest level of activity at Pu`u `O`o since September 2011.

There were four felt earthquakes in the past week on the Island of Hawai`i. On January 13, 2013, at 4:28 a.m., a magnitude-3.2 earthquake occurred 4 km (3 mi) southeast of Kilauea summit at a depth of 3 km (2 mi). On January 15 at 5:15 p.m., a magnitude-2.7 earthquake occurred 4 km (3 mi) south of Volcano at a depth of 3 km (2 mi). Later that same day at 11:50 p.m., a magnitude-2.1 earthquake occurred 4 km (3 mi) west of Kailua-Kona at a depth of 10 km (7 mi). On January 16 at 10:33 a.m., a magnitude-2.6 earthquake occurred 13 km (8 mi) south of Kapoho at a depth of 10 km (7 mi).

Visit the HVO Web site (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov) for Volcano Awareness Month details and Kilauea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai activity updates, recent volcano photos, recent earthquakes, and more; call (808) 967-8862 for a Kilauea summary; email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov.

Activity at the ocean entry near Kupapaʻu Point has increased slightly over the past several days, with small entry points now spread along the coastline on both sides of the National Park boundary. Whale watching season has also arrived—the splash of whitewater near the bottom center part of the photo is from a breaching whale investigating the ocean entry. Photo courtesy of USGS/HVO

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Time-lapse multi-image movie of Pu‘u ‘O‘o Crater

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Time-lapse movie of Pu‘u ‘O‘o Crater East Flank

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Time-lapse movie of the Peace Day Flow area